I grew up near Newcastle at the base of the Watagan mountains, before I moved to the Hunter Valley. I completed an Automotive (Heavy Vehicle Mechanical) (Industrial) Certificate III, working in the local mines as a plant mechanic for over 10 years before starting my Mechanical Engineering Degree and then my first Masters's Degree.
What does your employer do?
Aeris Resources is a diversified Australian metalliferous mining and exploration company headquartered in Brisbane, Australia
What are your areas of responsibility?
Mobile equipment maintenance, analysing equipment utilisation, downtime, and condition monitoring to create eliminate defects and increase efficiency and performance.
Can you describe a typical work day?
A general day starts before sunrise and ends at sundown (including travel to and from the site). Whilst at work, I am responsible for leading the reliability team in reporting on equipment performance, examining downtime and condition monitoring information, reviewing and optimising the maintenance strategy, conducting root cause failure analysis on equipment failures, and visiting our sites to ensure everything is working efficiently and operating safely.
What sort of person succeeds in your career?
Someone who is motivated, hard-working, and flexible. Need to have hands-on experience to understand the inner workings of the equipment and how maintenance teams and workshops function.
What are the career prospects with your job?
There are managing directors who started out as mechanical engineers, the sky is the limit.
What do you love the most about your job?
There are mines all over the world, this job could take me anywhere!
What do you like least about your job?
The distance from my home town, mining operations are not generally located near major centres of "civilisation".
What three pieces of advice would you give to a current university student?